Saturday 12 January 2008

Can One Like Me Ever Get Equal Rights In The West

I have seen and experienced enough unique attacks as a singular individual to know by now why I became a target. My case is about imperialism, and in this context, I know I cannot be given the same rights as the next man in any western society. There just isn’t room enough within the system for people like me to coexist alongside others who fit the space reserved for them. I am left standing alone, the odd one out, my only option to fight for my rights, but then this would obviously be a losing battle being who I am, standing up against the wishes of an entire culture. I know that the only place on the planet where I can be attacked the way I am being attacked now, whereby I have only just relocated and my new neighbors are already telling me “it is because of you” that the area is getting inundated with strange people, is the west. As was the case in the Netherlands, it did not take long before the attacks spiraled off into a crescendo whereby there no longer was a need to be covert.

By the time the torment I was undergoing in the Netherlands became too overt and intolerable, I had already learnt all I needed to about my predicament, especially the inevitability of the fate, and had long since decided to leave the west for a clime where I realized that, though the chance of the attacks continuing was still present, it was impossible to get attacked as blatantly as was the case there, due to a completely different political climate, and ethnic or cultural realities.

My difficulty during the period I have been under attack, which happens to be the same for most targets, is that, as the recorded attacks reveal, especially what the increased attacks in the morning say about what my tormentors are really trying to do, every attempt to get away is thwarted, and as I speak and write about these experiences, as I provide the evidence that proves what is happening within my living space that provides a clue as to what is happening in the larger picture, politicians, acting as illiterate as it gets, will not fail to go on the air today or tomorrow, attempting to prove through some ruthless act on some hapless immigrants from Zimbabwe, or attacking some unemployed foreigners for being scroungers or free loaders taking advantage of free housing and giving nothing back, that the cases raised by some prolific writers are rubbish.

Never fails to provoke that reaction.

The stalking and attacks I had experienced in the Netherlands are no different from those in England, and even before I left the country I already knew moving around Europe would not stop attacks. I came to England accidentally, unintentionally, due to a choice I made regarding the source for my flight ticket back. I could barely afford the full fare and, because I was desperate to leave, afraid my spending habits would simply cause more delay, I accepted an offer of a reduced fare by a Pastor at a church in the Bijlmer area in Amsterdam that I frequented, who happens to be the uncle of the late South African reggae star Lucky Dube. The pastor helped illegal immigrants repatriate through a government grant. Because I was not illegal - I have Dutch nationality - he had to prevent the border authorities from discovering this fact. Also, because I was going to go to the airport as an illegal immigrant, I was subject to the same procedures that they were, one of which is that my passport was going to be withheld and handed to me at the airport, by Dube himself.

I was to leave via London Heathrow, and, without my passport, could still cross the channel using my ID card. I would get abode with a Pastor of the same church in London, and then board the plane for Africa when the day came. Pastor Dube requested that I pay a fee of €250 upfront, and though I realized this was completely unnecessary because the church was losing nothing at all in the transaction, I do not believe in something for nothing. What he was asking was a third of what I could have paid had I booked the flight myself. I wasn't going to argue with as fair a deal as this.

No truth came of the plans the pastor made after I arrived in England and, rejected by the contact he had provided, I was left to fend for myself. Bed and breakfast accommodation emptied my pockets within a month and a half, and Dube became increasingly irrational when we communicated. Eventually, he became unreachable on both his cell phone and email. Angry with Dube, and afraid to return to a country that had already imprisoned me under false charges, aware my anger at Dube would make the authorities find a reason to arrest me again, to protect what I was now convinced was nothing more than their operative from harm, I was left with no choice but to find employment, if by this I could house myself and pay for the trip back home, before I lost all rights in England too.

I was no better than a lot of political prisoners who have been removed of all documents to prevent flight, but even though I did not have my passport, I could still use my ID card to travel or legitimize myself within Europe. Soon after spending a few days sleeping rough, I found a job, got a place to sleep at a local church, and a few weeks after that had saved enough to pay for a room. As soon as I started making progress, the attacks began to escalate. The cat and mouse games between me and my tormentors, that I had grown accustomed to in Holland, started with a vengeance, the aim and result of which was to slow me down as much as was possible. I was once again back to square one, caught between overspending to protect myself from harm and keep my employment, while at the same time hoping to save enough to leave.

I have thus far spent close to four years in this country, tied down, in a virtual prison. All came to a head this winter when I became more evasive than usual with my writing, after learning my lessons well. Unlike my previous project written on a laptop that could be read within the next rooms, seen in the fact the licensed criminal attacking me next door always scrambled noisily about as soon as I opened the lid, only some parts of the recent book had been read before it was released to the public, a period in which the material was illegitimately read through the back door by some persons who have thus far not bothered to be secretive about this. It is obvious they are now unable to risk the prospect I could write a third book whose contents could be much more damaging. In fact I would be a fool to think that this is not the case after all I have experienced. This is the reason the authorities decided to evict me from the place where I was protected, into the streets where they could get rid of me much more quickly, and blame natural causes. The same thing that had been done to me twice before in Holland whereby I was arrested just after I had sent a book to a publisher, and again when I started making good money and making my presence known online was repeated in England.

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